Tech firm secures £19m investment
A Leeds-headquartered tech firm has secured a £19m ($25m) investment to fund it next stage of growth, which will see its headcount double.
Crisp Thinking, a social media brand safety and crisis monitoring service to global brands, media publishers and social platforms, today announces a $25m investment from Baird Capital, the direct investment arm of Robert W. Baird & Co.
Baird Capital will take a minority interest in Crisp Thinking Group and Baird Capital Partner Andrew Ferguson will join the Crisp board of directors. The investment will enable Crisp to build on its current 100% year on year growth, and to double its headcount from 100 to 200 globally.
Crisp will be investing strongly in the continued development of its AI-based social media risk detection platform and expanding its sales and marketing operations globally, in particular in the US, where the majority of Crisp’s customers are based.
Adam Hildreth, CEO and Founder of Crisp said: “Social media and the safety of both brands and society are in the headlines every day. Brands are experiencing increasing levels of crisis, brand attacks and targeted threats online, as well as dealing with reputation-damaging situations such as corporate scandals, all of which need fast resolution. Meanwhile Governments worldwide are putting pressure on the social platforms to combat hate speech, terrorist propaganda and the proliferation of child sex abuse material.
“We are the pioneers in social media brand safety and work with 1000s of the biggest brands in the world to tackle all of these issues. We deliver a social media safety solution tailored for each brand, based on our scalable SaaS platform that combines the world’s best AI-based social media content risk detection technology with real-time human intelligence.”
Andrew Ferguson, Baird Capital Partner added: “Crisp’s culture is a strong fit with Baird’s and our global footprint and resources are well positioned to help the business to expand its international footprint further. Since its founding, Crisp has been focused on digital risk protection in a social media context and is building a highly respected reputation in this quickly evolving space. Adam, Andrew, Peter and team have built a fabulous business and a great platform to scale further from. We look forward to working with the team in the next exciting phase of Crisp’s growth”.
Lester Wilson led the DWF team advising Crisp and its shareholders. Robin Skelton led the Eversheds Sutherland team advising Baird. Markus Salolainen led the AGC partners team as advisors to Crisp.
